photograph/soups world-according to research from the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom), poverty affects children’s development, because that born in areas of poverty show key differences in brain function at an early age, with the weaker brain activity and a greater propensity to be distracted.
In the study that was published in the journal ‘Developmental Science’, the researchers studied the brain function of children aged between four months and four years of age in rural areas of the India. Thus, they have shown that children from low-income families, where mothers also had a low level of education, had worse brain function.
“Every year, 250 million children in middle-income countries low- and do not reach their potential for development.” Therefore, there is a growing need to understand the overall impact of poverty in the early development of the brain and behavior. Other studies have already demonstrated that poverty and adversity at an early age have a significant impact on the development of the brain, contributing to a vicious cycle of poverty. But few studies have examined the brain at the beginning of the development function,”explains lead investigator John Spencer.
The team carried out its study in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous of the India region. Using a portable device’s functional spectroscopy near infrared (fNIRS, for its acronym in English), they measured the brain activity of 42 children aged between four months and four years of age in rural environments.
FNIRS systems radiate infrared light close to the cortical tissue through sources placed in the head through a special lid, connected to a computer. Thus, assessed the visual memory of child labour, its ability to store visual information and detect changes in the visual environment when they occur.
The participants made a visual test with flashing screens of squares of colors. The objective was to ascertain if the children could remember the colors it enough as well as to detect that there was always a change of color on one side of the screen, while the colors on the other side always were the same.
Later, the results were compared with children from families of Midwest America. Children in families with low income India showed a weaker brain activity and suppression of distractor poorer in the area of the left frontal cortex of the brain that is involved in working memory.
